American football has to consider television in its decisions. They really want it to be exciting, but brief. The old rules were sudden death. While it seemed like the winner of the coin toss won most of the time, I think the statistics actually were pretty close. The big change when it happened in a high profile game, so they tweaked it to what it is now.

Its not like Atlanta didn't have chances in regulation, so despite the Falcons losing, I think the system worked this time.

scotland wrote:American football has to consider television in its decisions. They really want it to be exciting, but brief. The old rules were sudden death. While it seemed like the winner of the coin toss won most of the time, I think the statistics actually were pretty close. The big change when it happened in a high profile game, so they tweaked it to what it is now.

Its not like Atlanta didn't have chances in regulation, so despite the Falcons losing, I think the system worked this time.

But all major leagues have to consider ratings. Baseball can have eternal overtime, to the point of having position players end up pitching when the whole bullpen is exhausted. The NHL has two types of overtime, just in case the first type doesn't work. The CFL has their games end pretty briskly after overtime starts, as it is very rare for both teams to answer each other with the exact same points, especially considering in overtime you HAVE to attempt the two point convert on a touchdown. And you haven't seen an overtime until you have seen one team get the touchdown but no convert, and then have a chance to have to stop the opposition twice to win. That's an overtime worth watching to the bitter end.

See this year's Grey Cup (CFL Superbowl if you will). It, also, went to overtime. It also featured an extreme underdog (a 3 year old expansion team) playing the team with the second best record in CFL history. If you skip to 2hrs40mins, you can see overtime. It is still pretty short, was very fun to watch, and was, above all, fair and sensible.

If the stats are close, it just means the defensive team was robbed way, way more often then, as they should obviously have won more, given that they did pretty good while playing into an unfair situation. It'd be like saying "when you give the home side 7 less outs in a baseball game, they still win neartly 50% of the time." That would imply they should, in that world, win way more than 50% of the time.

Atarifever wrote:Dear Americans,Your football league has a trash garbage overtime policy. It is too bad that another gridiron league next door to you doesn't have a sensible policy that has been proven to work just fine and doesn't give the game to the winner of a coin toss. Oh wait...

Signed,Canada

Seriously, I could not believe your overtime policy when it was explained to me, and I still can't believe it two days later. It's like doing sudden death (first run wins) in baseball, and flipping to decide who hits in the top of the 10th. Or it's like having a sudden death shoot-out in hockey, and flipping to see who gets first shot on goal. It boggles my mind to imagine that anyone, anywhere thinks this is a good overtime system. It's not just bad. It's farcical. The team I was cheering for didn't win, and they idn't deserve to. The better team won, so that's cool too. However, that overtime system is a total dumpster fire, and everyone who watches that league has to know it, right?

I'm actually a big fan of the new overtime rules. Honestly, if you can't stop them from scoring a touchdown on the opening drive you don't deserve to win. I know the previous method was still a 50/50 shot (at least that's what the research indicates), but watching a team manage to get 30-40 yards just to get a field goal always left me feeling short-changed. The new way adds an element of fairness while managing to maintain the excitement of sudden death. Now the change in the location of the kick-off drives me nuts!

Luigi & Peach wrote:I'm actually a big fan of the new overtime rules. Honestly, if you can't stop them from scoring a touchdown on the opening drive you don't deserve to win. I know the previous method was still a 50/50 shot (at least that's what the research indicates), but watching a team manage to get 30-40 yards just to get a field goal always left me feeling short-changed. The new way adds an element of fairness while managing to maintain the excitement of sudden death. Now the change in the location of the kick-off drives me nuts!

This is something I keep hearing from NFL fans since this happened, and I don't get the logic. "If you can't stop one drive" doesn't make sense. The fact is, the Pats had to stop zero drives in overtime. Zero. None. If their entire defense suddenly caught bubonic plague and died on the sidelines in overtime, they still would have won. You are right: if you can't stop one drive in overtime, you don't deserve to win. I didn't see the Pats stop one drive in overtime.

Let's move this to videogames, considering the site we're on. Let's imagine you have a buddy over to your house to play Street Fighter 2. You and him play exactly as well the whole night. He says "let's see who is really the best with one last match." Then he sets your health bar to zero and his all the way up. When you insist this isn't far, he says "if yo can't even win one match without taking a hit, you pretty much deserved to lose." You ask if he will also be taking a round with no health, and he says "Heck no. That would be unfair." That's NFL overtime.

I agree that the overtime rules are stupid. The fact of the matter is both teams were 28-28 going into overtime. The score is essentially 0-0. Imagine Atlanta winning the coin toss. Imagine on the first offensive play Matt Ryan threw a touchdown pass to Julio Jones while Tom Brady just stood on the sideline and watched. That's it. Game over. Do you really think the same people that have been screaming GOAT all week would be satisfied with that outcome? I really don't think so.

I get not wanting to get the players too banged up during the regular season and accommodating TV schedules but this is the freaking Superbowl! It's the biggest sporting event of the year! These millionaires can play a few extra minutes of football for the first Superbowl OT ever.

Atarifever wrote:Dear Americans,Your football league has a trash garbage overtime policy. It is too bad that another gridiron league next door to you doesn't have a sensible policy that has been proven to work just fine and doesn't give the game to the winner of a coin toss. Oh wait...

Signed,Canada

Seriously, I could not believe your overtime policy when it was explained to me, and I still can't believe it two days later. It's like doing sudden death (first run wins) in baseball, and flipping to decide who hits in the top of the 10th. Or it's like having a sudden death shoot-out in hockey, and flipping to see who gets first shot on goal. It boggles my mind to imagine that anyone, anywhere thinks this is a good overtime system. It's not just bad. It's farcical. The team I was cheering for didn't win, and they idn't deserve to. The better team won, so that's cool too. However, that overtime system is a total dumpster fire, and everyone who watches that league has to know it, right?

But seriously, there's nothing wrong with the NFL overtime rule. There was no such thing as overtime in the NFL until the 1958 Championship Game aka The Greatest Game Ever Played, where the game was tied at the end of regulation. The officials had to improvise overtime rules, which is essentially a new game with special rules.

It used to be strict sudden death, meaning the team that wins the coin-toss just had to kick a FG to win. Now, each team gets a possession, unless the first possession ends in a TD or Safety. After each team has a possession, normal sudden death rules apply, first team to score for any reason wins.

I'm going to have to let this go soon, but I really just do not get people defending this. Yes there is something wrong with the overtime rule: it is unfair. Full stop. In one of the richest leagues in the world, in the highest caliber version of its sport anywhere, there is a rule in place that, undeniably, is logically unfair. It is so obvious that it is unfair, and for some reason, it is still there. It's not fine. It's not good. It's unfair. The end. I feel like I'm talking to people who speak another language.

I don't know if it's because I love football so much, or just that I really love sports, but I really can't wrap my head around a sport having an unfair rule this obvious and the fans of that sport not being upset about it. One bad call is usually enough for fans to scream that a game has been "ruined," but a totally unfair rule is just fine? Anyway, I'll let this go. If the score is close near the end of the Super Bowl next year, I'll just turn it off and watch someone flip a coin or something equally compelling.

Atarifever wrote:If the score is close near the end of the Super Bowl next year, I'll just turn it off and watch someone flip a coin or something equally compelling.

This is the first time out of 51 Super Bowls for the game to go to OT.

If you turn it off when the score is close near the end, you'll miss some of the best sports moments of all time.

As I stated, I love football. In reality, good luck prying me away from a close championship game for real.

I like football enough to watch College Bowl games based on guys who are on my CFL team's negotiation list, for the possibility that they don't get drafted by the NFL and may, in a couple years, play for my team if their contract isn't traded away. I'm watching the games for a 1% chance of getting a preview of a guy before he plays for my team. I listen to no less than 6 football podcasts a week in season. I follow the Canadian Draft, and watch it live, then watch the later rounds online. The Canadian Draft! A close Super Bowl game is a lock for me. I will still watch if they let one side run shotgun formations with actual shotguns.

I feel for Falcons fans, that was just an awful way to lose. They dropped two interceptions on the Patriots' game tying drive and one on the game winning drive. Plus that pass call on 3rd and 1 was brutal.